


114 - Red

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Reader-Insert, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 22:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17434619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompts “one where the reader and van broke up around 6/12 months ago and the reader is in a relationship with someone else but it isn’t going very well and the reader and her new bf go to see catfish in a gig and van sings red and she realises it’s about her.” and “one where like you drunk text van like a couple months after you’ve broken up or something and like he comes pick you up and you tell him that you miss him and stuff like that and its cute??





	114 - Red

Watching Catfish and the Bottlemen become more and more successful was a double edged sword. It was all Van ever dreamed of, and God, did the boy fucking deserve it. He had grafted since he was a kid, and you knew that. You knew he wanted to buy houses for his family and make people all across the world lose themselves in the songs he'd been writing his whole life. There was never a moment where you wished they didn't get so famous. It wasn't like that. But, what it was like was standing between the two blades on a pair of scissors. One handle was Catfish's success, and the other was Van. The closer he got to it, to the dream, the closer you were to being all cut up and hurt and left behind. He never, ever meant it to be like that, but it happened.

Van would be on the road more and more. In the short few weeks he'd be back in your bed, he was distracted by to-be-written lyrics and predictions for how audiences in countries he'd never been to would behave. All the other things you'd talked about as ratty teenagers faded into the background. There wasn't a shared dream and that alone was enough to push you out into the arms of your friends and other people. Van didn't know about your friendship with Riley, nor did he know that it was probably more than a friendship. You weren't a cheater, but it still felt deceptive, all the time you spent with Riley. When the guilt was too much, you told Van it was better for you both to go your separate ways.

He cried. Van crying was easily one of the worst things you'd ever seen. Maybe it was that it hardly happened, or maybe because it was so gut-wrenchingly honest. "He can't…" he tried to say, "He can't do for you what I can." The fact was, though, that he could. Riley could see you every other day. He could take you out after work. He could call at normal times and not wake you up. You believed with all your heart Van was going to be okay, and you would be too.

…

When The Ride was released months later, you made the conscious choice not to listen. Some of your favourite songs were on The Balcony, and it still hurt to hear your own words and stories being sung back at you. You didn't want to know what heartache The Ride had to tell. 

The sick curiosity innate to all humans got the better of you though, and you bought a ticket to see them play live. It was a fucking mistake and you knew that. You knew it because if it wasn't, you wouldn't have kept it a secret from everyone you knew. We don't tell people about what we know is wrong.

You arrived late, knowing that they'd open with Homesick. You stood at the back of the bar and watched Van try to exhaust himself for the entertainment of the room. The new songs, never heard but still somehow familiar, were good. They were clean and sharper than those from The Balcony. The lights went down and Van spoke. "This song's from the new album and it's called Red."

Does he meet you, with heart shaped balloons? Offer you everything and never pull through? Does he love what you've done with the place?

A voice in your head laughed hard. Really, you deserved the pain for going to the show. You knew, you fucking just knew he'd sing about you. The time he picked you up from work with balloons in hand for no reason. The time you moved into a cheap apartment, just to be closer to him, and put posters up to cover the cracks in the walls. He made a joke about it, "Love what you've done with the place, Y/N." Then, the many, countless times he'd promised to be back, to be home, offer it all, then book another fucking show. The song was about you, and there was no doubt about it. You wondered if the 'he' was Riley, or just everyone that wasn't Van. 

It hurt to hear. It hurt to know that he'd not stopped thinking about it all, about you, since you broke up. Maybe, you told yourself, the lyrics weren't so literal. There was something in them, though. His voice was heavy with purpose and intent, and his eyes held intensity as he sung to the crowd.

Hey, how about I change? How about you love me again?

'Again' implied there was a point in which you had stopped loving Van, and that wasn't true. You knew it as you stood shaking in the bar listening to him growl out his feelings to people that thought they could possibly understand what it was like to love and lose him. You ran from the room as the song finished.

…

Sitting in front of your laptop drunk was the first mistake. Well… the first mistake was breaking up with Van… The second was going to see Catfish… So, maybe it was the third. You had his webpage open, looking at the list of live shows. It told you he was probably still in the city. In the three days that had passed since you first heard Red, you listened to it on repeat. Each time only served to dig the blade deeper into your heart, and to water the flowerbed of guilt and regret growing inside you.

A message popped up on your phone from your friend inviting you out. It was early in the night, too early to be already drunk. You messaged back a lie and a decline. A thank you. You chewed your bottom lip as your finger lingered over the lock button. A fourth bad idea popped into your head, and you started a new message. I went to your show the other day is all you sent him. As soon as you did, it was added to the list of regrets. Writing Red was probably Van healing. Who the fuck were you to open that wound? You drunk more over the course of an hour, dying with anticipation. Would it be worse if he replied, or if he never spoke to you again?

Of course he'd call. The photo that flashed up on your screen was of him sleeping in your bed; his hair messy and his necklace the wrong way around. You still knew the exact amount of freckles on his back. You picked up and said nothing.

"Y/N?" His voice was soft, careful.

"Yeah?" you croaked out, your voice breaking and the tears starting.

"Fuck. Y/N. What are you doing?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

He paused, listening to you cry as quietly as you could. His breathing was audible and it made you ache for him. "Are you drunk?"

"Yeah," you admitted after nodding and realising he couldn't see the movement.

"Fuck," he sighed, "Where are you? Are you safe?"

"I'm home,"

"By yourself?"

"Yeah."

Van told you to sit tight, and he hung up. As soon as the line went dead your quiet crying erupted into a violent attack of sobs. You tried to calm yourself down, but you were dead set on making yourself suffer. When Van knocked on the door half an hour later, you had only just started to get a hold of yourself. You opened it and went still. He was there, tired, frustrated, but there. He stepped closer and pulled you into a hug, holding you to his chest. Your arms curled between you, and his arms wrapped around you entirely. A safe little cocoon where you could pretend the rest of the world didn't exist. Where regret and songs and time and fear didn't exist.

Eventually Van moved, pushing you into your apartment. You sat with him on the couch.

"You came to the show," he said. You nodded in confirmation. "Why?" A shrug. "Had you listened to the new album?" A shake of the head. "I don't know what to tell ya, Y/N. You know how I write. You broke my fuckin' heart. Of course the songs were gonna be about you. That's what this is, right?"

"I'm sorry," you whispered.

"Yeah. You've said that a couple hundred times. What are you sorry for? What do you want? I'm trying to move on, or whatever, like you said. How do you expect me to do that if you do this?" 

He wasn't angry. He was hurt, and he was still in love with you. It dripped from every word.

"I don't want you to anymore,"

"You don't want me to do what, Y/N?"

"Move on… I miss you…"

The words weighed down the room and expelled the oxygen from it. Short of breath, Van shifted uncomfortably and put his head in his hands. You sucked your bottom lip between your teeth. He looked over at you, and his eyebrows knitted together. His hand reached over and he ran his thumb along your lips, forcing you to stop chewing.

"Don't do that," he said; he always said that. He didn't look away. "God, I fucking love you."

As soon as the first tear fell, waiting for its moment, the rest followed quickly. Van pulled you on top of him and you tried to breathe through his skin. "I'm sorry," you said again. He hushed you, kissing your head over and over.

"It's… Yeah… Just… Just don't ever fucking do this to me again. Yeah? You can come on tour with me from now on; whatever you need to understand how much I fucking love you. Okay? I don't want to do this again," he said and it was a promise and a beg and a vow.

…

In the small bunks of the tour bus, in the glances thrown as he sung on stage, the little mentions of you in interviews, the late nights and early rises and hotel orange juice, in all of it was where the stitches over your cuts were sewn. In the same places, Van's bruises were healed. You fixed each other, and you knew that the months you spent apart were a war fought and won together, and you'd be a stronger united force.

You were curled up on one of the sofas in the back room of the bus where Van and Larry slept. Van was at your feet smoking. You watched him scribble down lyrics for another song that would lead to another album and another tour. All of which, you'd be a fundamental part of. 

"New song?" you asked him, ruffling his hair. He nodded, not looking up. "What's it about?"

"What do you think it's about?" he replied in a vague and distracted voice.

"Me?"

"Yeah. Always 'bout you."


End file.
